


the inkwells of prophecy

by aibari



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Fae & Fairies, Fae Martin, He has a cat, M/M, TMA Fantasy Week, jon is a witch (like tiffany aching is a witch), sort of a modern with magic/discworld witches but vaguely present day mood happening here lads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29930490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aibari/pseuds/aibari
Summary: Something happened to Jon when he was young.Now the sea is coming to collect.Written for TMA Fantasy Week.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41





	the inkwells of prophecy

**Author's Note:**

> hello! genuinely I have no idea where this is going but I'm sure we'll have fun figuring it out.
> 
> Prompts for this chapter: Lantern, Sea, Prophecy.
> 
> Title from _glowing_ by the oh hellos.
> 
> Unbetaed and unbothered.

In his dreams he was back in the cave again. There was a narrow staircase carved straight into the stone, each step worn like old teeth and slick with saltwater, and he was climbing down them now, precariously, half-slipping at uneven intervals.

He had been a curious child, even back then. Precocious. Unable to let anything go.

Still. He had never dared to explore the cave before. Had never dared to come back in the aftermath, either.

But in his dreams he was there again. It was dark and smelled of salt and brackish water, of things lost and left to rot away in the shallow pools of water, in the hollows that had gathered up in the rock over the course of years and decades and centuries all pressed down and piled on top of each other. He hadn’t been thinking about it that night, but somehow he had still _felt_ it, all that time folded over, pushing up against his fingers, the soles of his summer shoes.

Up above, a storm was raging, but he was far enough into the depths already that he could barely hear it, thunder softened and waves a gentle static. The stone steps should have been drier, but he did not pay it any mind, not in the moment. He wanted –

He needed –

 _To get to the end_.

It was and wasn’t his thought.

And at any rate it didn’t matter whose thought it was. All that mattered was that it was true. He had to get to – to the bottom. To see.

He didn’t know what. He just knew that he needed to see it.

He didn’t know how long it had taken him to get there, back when it was real. It had felt like forever, but everything had felt like forever back then.

In the dreams, the descent was over in an instant.

Then he was standing at the bottom, one foot in a stagnant puddle, dirty water seeping into the dirty canvas fabric of his shoes.

There was a light ahead, shifting blue green purple white across the cave walls, liquid like the sea outside. He walked towards it like a sleepwalker, eyes burning with the brightness after such a dark, downward climb. The only sounds were his own heart beating and his feet against the rock and then, quiet-but-soon-louder, the solid, static-soft rush of something like water, like a radio playing dead air.

And there were whispers in it, somehow, though he didn’t know how he could make them out. He hadn’t been able to when it happened, and usually when he dreamed the whispers were more suggestions of words than anything clear and sensible, but now they were forming so clearly it was as though they were being spelled out in the air in front of him:

_rise the sea and level town_

_wave on wave on spirit bound_

_thread will tie him to the throne_

_speak the ending: watcher’s crown_

Then, rudely, he woke up; between one breath and the next he found himself frowning up at the ceiling of his cottage. It was a grey morning, light low and sullen on the floorboards.

“If it had to be poetry,” Jon muttered, “the least you could do was not attempting to rhyme _throne_ with _crown._ ”

The room stayed quiet. He sighed and rolled out of bed, checking the time and finding it later than he wanted it to be but not late enough that he had missed any clients. When he went to shower, Pilot was sleeping in the laundry basket. The lid had shut on top of her, but a single calico paw had been shoved indulgently though the handle. Her whistling snore never failed to make his chest hurt.

She woke up as he was making breakfast and padded into the kitchen nook. He slid her half a rasher of bacon and felt, as usual, a little bit like a criminal doing a heist.

“Don’t eat it all at once,” he murmured, but she was done with it almost before he could finish the sentence. It made him smile, another small and warm and secret thing.

Then he realised he’d left the tea bag in for too long again, which was also, he supposed, part of the routine.

After breakfast, he went to check on the things he had brewing in the shed. He didn’t have much today, just a simple pain relief potion for Old Aggie and good luck charms for Nita and Sammy, who were gearing up for their entrance exams at university and feeling anxious about it. The potion had been brewing since Tuesday, and should have reached full potency by now. The charms he’d strung with copper wire and filled with cinnamon and cloves. They were strictly psychological, but that was no reason they couldn’t smell nice.

Jon’s cottage stood on its own on a sloping hill above the rest of the town, as was traditional for a village witch. Beyond his cottage was his brewing shed, and beyond the shed was his herb garden, and beyond _that_ was the drop where the hill became a cliff, a white chalk expanse that led straight into the sea below.

The view never failed to strike him breathless.

He barely had the time to get the door all the way open before he realised that something was wrong.

The air was heavy with coming rain, but it was –

It was different than usual.

It sat heavier. It _boded_.

Cautiously, he made his way to the edge of the cliff and peered below.

The waves churned and beat against the rock, whipped up as though the storm had already arrived. Jon bit the inside of his cheek.

“Rise the sea and level town,” he said, though the words seemed to come from somewhere outside of himself. He took a deep breath, and then added, with feeling, “ _Fuck_.”


End file.
